Roseburg: Thursday night, we are here.
It rained from the beach by our house all the way here. Not just a little
spring zephyr either, it rained like God's own super soaker. Almost all
the way here.

We are the proud owners of a brand new
and amazingly fast boat, named Cavefish Squared, but we are having a problem.
The oil temp is climbing too high and oil is venting out the breathers.
I've cleaned up a huge mess in the back several times now. Bob McKellar,
who came to this race with us, asked me what kind of driveline clearance
I had, could the pump be pushing on the thrust bearing in the motor in
other words? Something to check tommorrow. I am exhausted from a pretty
solid thrash for the last week, motor in and out twice, my eyeballs hurt
as does my hands. They both feel like they have been slammed in the car
door every day for a week.

Friday Morning

Rob Soule confirmed for me what Bob had
said, that a driveline pushing on the back of the crank would make the
thrust bearing cause your oil temps to climb significantly. I went to Unpredictables
(Paul Bagshaw, Rob Soule and Dan Mahoneys) shop to check the clearance.
By wiggling the driveline it felt like like it was pushed tight on the
pump shaft. I must have done that when aligning the motor, I had set it
1/4 inch then started lining the motor up with the pump, but must have
shoved themotor back as I did that. Be more careful!!! I slotted my motor
plate bolt holes and slid the motor forward about 1/4 inch and bolted it
back down. Don't worry, it isn't going to move, I am using grade 8, 1/2
inch bolts at each corner sandwiching two aluminum plates, one 3/4 inch
and the other 1/4 inch.

Bob, Lynn and I towed out to the designated
test area and ran it, oil temps now held steady at 220, but oil was blowing
out of the timing cover seal.We saw 87.7 downriver, 82.1 up while testing.
We towed back to River forks park, Lynn and I caught a ride to look at
the course with Paul Luhrs in Gary Weavers boat while Bob ran back to Roseburg
to find us a timing cover seal and a dampner puller. Saw the course, Paul
showed us a couple of good lines that will help tommorrow and we got to
see the underside of the construction on the I-5 bridge south of Roseburg.

We went back over to Paul Bagshaw's shop
and pulled the dampner, replaced the seal which was hard and not too good
of shape, I siliconed the hell out of the cover/pan joint and we put it
back together. Good to go!

On to the indoor boat show at Seven Feathers
Casino. Pretty neat to get teched on carpet!

There are 20 boats pretty much ready to
go, a couple are in the "We are hacking it together as we speak " stage.

John Burns took the squeegy thing away
from me as I was putting our numbers on, he couldn't stand to see me hamfist
the vinyl. They look really good now that he and Morgan put them on nice,
much better than if I had done it!

Dave brought me my official Provost Race
boat stickers and out them on. Man, they really make the look of the boat!

The Calcutta went well, this event appeared
to better attended than the last few years.

Val and Del Ramsdell were there, nice to
see them still following and coming to races! I am hoping to see them back
in a boat one of these days.Drivers meeting is at 7:30 am, I am hoping
for less rain than today gave us.

Saturday - Racing

Well, I'll get my hard luck story out of
the way first. We made it about 1/2 mile upriver with smoke billowing around
us all the way. The smoke kept getting worse. The motor would not hold
at full throttle, started loading down. Then it started missing. Oil pressure
was good, temps were good but in the interests of saving whatever parts
weren't wrecked, I parked it.

The other hard luck story is that the B-class
Miller/Longfellow #144 Liquifire boat refused to run right off the trailer.
They had been up most of the night finishing putting it together but it
wasn't going to go. The pulled it out and kept working on it, were still
trying when I limped back, but it wouldn't go. They had done a mad thrash
to make it here also, invested a good week of long, long days.

Ron Pabst's SBFX #15 Footloose motor siezed
on the way up. New boat, new racer, Ron is racing a KwikKraft that I used
to own. Ron has been a crewman on the Unpredictable team for a few years
and has been around racing, he wasn't awfully upset.

And let's not forget Don Ruddick and Pete
Nesbitt's SBFX #09 Mountain Honey burn down just above Elk Island. I understand
that there was also some excitement involved in the rescue.

On the first leg down, Scott Adams BBFX,
#155 Sideways shoved a rod through the pan. Also, Greg Boices SBFX #07
motor flooded out, had to be towed in, float levels or stuck float. They
were working on it and would make it back for the last up and down legs.

Since we were done, Lynn, Bob, Morgan and
I drove to Elk Island to catch the second down leg. We missed the second
up leg driving over.

Watching Paul Bagshaw A-class #277 Unpredictable
and Dave Provost A-class #182A Risky Business II come burning into the
corner was very impressive. Scary might be another good description of
the speed these boats carried into this corner.

Gary and Bill Padgett B-class #114 Xtreme
Chaos ran through fast and smooth, Gary and Duane Labrum B-class #163 Tuff-n-nuff
also. Two quick smooth runs. I missed seeing Gary & Bill's spin out
on their way up, and am hoping to track down some video if anyone got any-
Bill would like to see it too!

Seth Bogner B-class #177 Exhibitionist,
on what may be his last race, did a very quick run through too.

Jerome Rector B-class #187, racing an old
style Kwik Kraft, had a motor that was dieing of the same thing ours died
of. Dean Saxon BBFX #70 Adrenaline Rush, caught and passed him in the flat
above the turn in at the tree on the rock.Ryan Ringer, BBFX #309 Bohica took the
far right channel around Elk Island instead of the normal left channel,
and from standing on the bank it looked way faster then the usual run next
to the tree. I know there are a few rocks over there, apparently Ryan knew
exactly where they were. Ryan has navigated with Tim Harding over the last
few years and apparently the driving style has rubbed off on him. Sam Heath
BBFX #69 The Nameless Boat made a good clean run by the tree. His daughter,
who is his navigator, was doing the yeah-yeah-go thing with her hands all
the way through.

Merv George SBFX #13 Yellowhammer was doing
his usual compentant job, turned in hard, a couple of hops and he was around
the corner and gone.

Mike Egbers in SBFX #19 had a terrific
crash, they took the far left channel around the left side of the tree
on the rock, lost it and hit another tree. Bent the hell out of the front
of their boat. Barked the tree up pretty good. A rescue boat parked on
the east bank immediately took off to help them, but I saw no flags being
waved. This was Mike and his navigator, Eric Hamburg's, first race. They
are running a sweet little step-tech Mike Zoller's Performance Motorsports
put together for them. It's just a shame that this had to happen their
first race, they were doing well up to that point, holding their own. They
got their bells rung, but continued on to the finish line with the front
of the boat opened up like a salmon. I really hate that sound that a boat
makes smacking into something, it's a bad sound.

Scott Marshall #27 Makin Bakin, came bombing
around the corner, saw the sheriff boat and slowed, swerved off line. Scott
said he about hit them anyway, a near thing that was.

Gary Weaver SJ #08 Budweiser came along
in a while and also took that right hand line and made it look good.

We headed back to the pits at River Forks
park.

Back at the pits, Mike Egbers was trying
to hammer the nose of the boat back down, they had a roll of duct tape
handy to patch it up, they were going to try and make the next leg. Eventually
they decided not to try it after all.

This set of legs we decided to go try and
find the riffle by the fairgrounds.

To get to the riffle at the fairgrounds,
you take the fairgrounds exit, go under the freeway and then continue straight
to the end of the street (Washington) and turn right into a gravel parking
lot. You will end up behind the pits for the race track. The riffle is
right in front of you.

It's about 100 yards long with a large
brown knobby rock at the down river end. The rock is on the right side
of the river on your way up. It's not were you would normally drive. From
another year racing through here, there is another rock about a third of
the way in, just to the right of the line were you want to go, but enough
water this year I don't think you can hit it. The smoothest line takes
you just to the right of some willow shoots. At the top of the riffle is
a couple of rollers with one smooth spot that is angled off to the right.
Big flat pool above.

We climbed down the bank then walked upriver
a ways. Bob found an old lawn chair and got it open and the sand off, sat
down.

Watching the two A-boats go through this
riffle from the beach is an amazing experience. They do it so damn fast,
it almost looks unreal. It's a little bit scary too, I was feeling like
I was way too close to the action! You can hear them coming from a long
ways off, the revs drop just a tiny bit as they get into the bottom of
the riffle, then all of sudden they are there and carrying a LOT of speed,
they just kind of muscle through the bumps and then they are gone just
that quick. Amazing to watch.

Everybody went through on pretty much the
same line, but all with minor differences. Some where obviously line-driving
for the top of the riffle, some where kind of picking there way from slick
to slick. The different boats reacted to the water as you would expect,
the smaller boats being bounced about more than the bigger tunnels.

One of the most amazing sights was Ryan
Ringers run in BBFX Bohica, #309. The best way I think to describe it was
to say he ferociously attacked, from the bottom to the top. They went out
the top standing almost straight up dragging about a foot of nozzle, water
spraying in a vee past it, jabbing the engine up against the rev limiter.
They flew upriver about 75 feet in that attitude, hit the water with the
motor howling and shot off around the corner like they were being pulled
by a big rubber band, the navigator pumping his fist in the air. The only
way to have topped that run for WOW-FACTOR is if they had doused the engine
with gas and lit it on fire at the bottom of the riffle!

The fastest/smoothest run was Paul and
Rob's, #277 Unpredictable. Ryan gets the award for most aggressive/flamboyant,
Merv George and Greg Boice share for nicest line, they ran technically
perfect identical lines through here.

Morgan Heuberger got all these on tape
and I will be trying to put pictures to this story. Also going to make
some newer AWJA video from it.

I very much enjoyed watching the runs through
here. It would have been better to actually run it, of course, but it was
an educational experience. The last time Lynn and I ran this spot we had
Raven and I somehow got a kick off the top, we went skidding on our nose
for about fifty feet.

Sarah Sackett (Lynn's daughter) called
right about the time Paul went by. Lynn was narrating the runs and holding
the cell phone up so Sarah and Lynn's two grandsons, Brodie and Clayton
could hear the boats go by. I could actually hear Sarah over the boats
sometimes going "Woo Woo!" Bunch of boat nuts, they are.

My friend and crewchief, Bob McKellar had
been gamely dragging around behind us all weekend, but he was pretty pooped
from his meds by this time. When I glanced over at him sitting in that
wrecked lawnchair he had found, he was just sitting back watching the boats
and smiling. Morgan and Jason had their heads together between runs, talking
about racing together again someday, I am sure. Jason's friend Dave, was
kind of awed by the whole thing, never having been around this stuff before.

We came back to same spot Sunday for the
second set of legs. We were on our way out of town. We had heard the boats
go through town as we were in our motel room, drinking coffee & packing.
We hurridly threw our stuff together and checked out so we could get to
the fairgrounds to catch the next set of legs. It's a good spot to watch
from, there were a few people on the high banks across the river, but not
many on the fairgrounds side.

This sport is a real mind-blower to watch
if you are in the right spot. I am not sure how many of you really remember
that, I myself had kind of forgotten. I was impressed by how many spectators
we saw all over the place as we drove through town.

The Roseburg race this year was a great
success as it always is. Lot's of drama this year with new racers and all
the teething problems being the first race of the year. We started with
20 boats, ended the weekend with quite a bit fewer.

Here is the finishes and
times. You will notice that some of the finishes for the race do not match
the US POINTS finishes. The difference is that the race position, for trophies
and money, is by TOTAL TIME alone as it has always been, while US points
are awarded by finish position PER LEG. One way you might look at
this is that the system awards both hotrods AND finishers.